Year 7 friendships

[Laidbackorlazy]

Looking for a bit of reassurance that this is not uncommon... ds in first term at school, there were quite a few other kids from his primary went too but only one of his good friends.
He stuck with people he knew to start with but I think as they weren’t especially friends at primary those have started to drift. He doesn’t seem to have made any particular new friends. He plays football with a big group when it’s fine, but yesterday it was wet, & he said he just ate his lunch and went to the library & read by himself. I think that’s good & resourceful of him to find something to do, but also concerned that he was alone.
I have a (huge) tendency to overthink things..
I am telling myself it’s usual for friendships to take time & be a big tricky in year 7, esp as others have preexisting primary groups. Please tell me i’m right?

I think that’s fairly normal.

My son is in year 7 and didn’t know anyone. The school takes in big groups from feeder schools so most of the kids knew each other. He is slowly permeating the groups and finding kids he wants to be friends with.

I think it just takes time.

I hope you’re right as my son is in the same position. He’s hanging out with new friends at lunchtime but not consistently the same children and not outside of school yet. He seems happy though which I’m taking as my barometer and trying not to project my worries onto him. Someone told me the friends they make in the yr7 aren’t usually the ones they have by yr9 so on that basis. I’m trying not to worry!

Thanks for replies, hope everyone finds their feet fully soon. DS doesnt seem unhappy either which is good, other than usual preteen grumpiness. I am trying not to ask too much which I find very hard!
No meeting anyone outside school here either yet apart from old friends who are at other schools now. Going to try and stop worrying and give him plenty of encouragement to try clubs etc.

While girls may enjoy just hanging around and chatting, boys seem to gather together for a purpose - playing football, games, etc. Well at least boys at this age I know are like that and I can't really imagine them being so organised to arrange a meeting outside school just to hang around. They also tend to play together online nowadays. Mine is Y7 too. He hasn't arranged any meeting-up by himself yet, although he likes it and never says no when it's arranged by someone. Arranging some social things don't seem to occur to his mind yet.

Sounds very normal. IME more settled friendships tend to start emerging after Christmas. Clubs etc do help with this greatly though as they meet others ith similar interests and it stops those awful "sat by myself" lunchtimes.

My usually very sociable now 15 year old went through year 7 barely making a friend. I know he was often drifting around at break time, essentially on his own and it was an anxious time for me, I wondered if he’d ever make a friend. There were boys from his primary but they seemed to gel into friendship groups which for one reason or another excluded DS. Now he has well established friends, mostly from other primary schools and is socially comfortable. I think he was a little emotionally immature at year 7 ( who isn’t?!). This may have slowed friendship making down. It got better in year 8.